


The Pregnant Pause

by Fantastic Beasts and Where 2 Fondle Them (WideTheWaters)



Series: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Fondle Them [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A lot of ground gets covered, Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Luna Lovegood, Backstory, Boggarts, Centaurs, Childbirth, Crack Treated Seriously, Creature Fic, Creature Inheritance, Exophilia, Explicit Sexual Content, Exploring an Abandoned Old Castle, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairy Godparents, For Science!, Ghoul Sex, Ghouls, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Healer Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, House Elves, Human/Monster Romance, Hybrids, Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Ireland, Islands, Luna Lovegood is a Good Friend, Luna Meets Her Grandmother, Luna adopts Hermione into the Lovegood Family, Magical Inheritance, Magical Pregnancy, Magizoologist Luna Lovegood, Magizoology (Harry Potter), Mermen, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, Mostly recommended for those who've liked the series, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Northern Ireland, Other, POV Luna Lovegood, Pansexual Character, Pansexual Luna Lovegood, Plot, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Rare Characters, Rare Pairings, Resettling an Abandoned Town, Returning Home, Series, Sisters, Smut, Spells & Enchantments, Supernatural Bonds, Teratophilia, Tricksy Fae Midwives, Triplets, Veela (Harry Potter), Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Xenophilia, centaur sex, creature luna lovegood, human/centaur sex, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:39:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WideTheWaters/pseuds/Fantastic%20Beasts%20and%20Where%202%20Fondle%20Them
Summary: Intrepid Magizoologist Luna Lovegood has some work to do on the homefront, especially since she's accomplished one of her major goals: conceiving the future of the Lovegood line.After she learns some rather shocking details regarding her pregnancy from her adopted sister and Healer, Hermione, she sets out to talk to her various intimate acquaintances to share the news, tie up loose ends, and put her house in order for what's next.
Relationships: Kreacher/Luna Lovegood, Luna Lovegood/Original Creature Character(s), Luna Lovegood/Ronan, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood, Rubeus Hagrid/Luna Lovegood
Series: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Fondle Them [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533881
Comments: 24
Kudos: 68





	1. One Strange, Happy, Somewhat Problematic Family - Getting Bigger

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: most works in this series can stand alone. This isn't intended to be one of them. 
> 
> Rather, it's here to track some plot that those who've followed the series so far may be interested in and get some things done that have been building for a while so that Luna can accomplish some of her goals that may - temporarily - compete with her scientific pursuits and curious libido for the upper hand in her life.
> 
> The series of one shots will be back after this is done - but for now, enjoy or take a pass on this ramble that bridges between.

###  ❧ March, 2011, Cadracally Castle , Rathlin Island

Hermione squinted at the diagnostic. “Well, it’s a good thing I’ve given up on being surprised by you, Luna.”

Luna lifted her head from the bed and propped herself up on her elbows, looking at Hermione over her knees. “Hmm. I haven’t given up surprising you, so you know.”

Hermione stuck out her tongue at her now-official sister. She’d taken Lovegood has a second middle name, and after a month of falling asleep in the library, she’d given up and moved in around the middle of February. It was now March, and Luna had decided to take her into her confidence.

The brunette cast two more scans, glancing down and kneading at her forehead. “Shouldn’t be possible, but you’re our girl for that, I suppose.”

Luna playfully swung her steepled knees from one side to the other, smiling at Hermione serenely and refusing to take the bait.

“It’ll be difficult, but probably shorter than usual.” Hermione studied Luna, brows knitting.

Luna swung her luminous pale eyes innocently to meet the other woman’s gaze, beginning to smirk.

“Oh alright fine!” Hermione fumed, actually stomping her foot. “Fraternal triplets! Different fathers! Next time you have to ask and be all shocked.”

“You know,” mused Luna, “I suppose it would be incest were I to do it now, but were you any other scrumptious, seething woman standing next to my bed, I’d help you unwind some. As it stands, I suppose I shouldn’t be too... exuberant... in my assignations for a while.” She sighed, a dreamy smile lighting up her face as she let herself fall backward and pulled her hair out from under her to fan it above her head. “I’m going to have lots of delightful sex with Neville and Kreacher and… hmmm… see about getting some vicarious adventure out of you, I think.”

Hermione spat out the tea she’d been drinking. Luna thought that was fine; she hadn’t been tasting it, just gulping it pissily, and it was an insult to the tea. Maybe the bits that went up her nose, at least, would make her finally notice how fragrant it was and slow her down a bit.

Once she’d stopped coughing and mopped herself up, Hermione hoisted herself up on the end of Luna’s bed, yanking up her shirt and palpating her belly. “You’re insufferable, you know,” she said, though her hands were gentle.

“So you’ve said. But I’m not kidding.”

Hermione looked up, meeting Luna’s eye. “Luna, I assure you, that’s not necessary.”

Luna arched a brow.

“Really!” Hermione huffed in frustration, shaking her head and smoothing Luna’s shirt back down. “Look, you said you conceived in January, right? What species did you conduct your sexy little experiments with that month?”

Luna smiled. “Let’s call them  _ sexperiments _ .”

“Okay, but let’s  _ not. ever.  _ do that. And answer the question,” Hermione growled, flopping down on her side with her head propped by her elbow beside the blonde.

Luna shrugged. “Well, let’s see. Obviously Neville, and as far as we know he’s entirely human…”

Hermione nodded. 

“Ronan, so Centaur…”

Hermione’s eyes widened, but she made a mental note.

“Em, which ones were… oh! Well, Kolinaisi, of course…”

Hermione sighed.  _ Sea Naga/Mo’o/Iara hybrid, _ she thought. _ That could be interesting, by which I mean  _ exceptionally  _ complicated. _

“An Iara of the more mosquito-fish-esque sort by the name of Inacio - oh dear, that could be awkward, I may accidentally have offended him…”

Hermione, looking quite world-weary, started to make an actual written list.

Luna, on the other hand, rolled a little to one side, then to the next, looking delighted as she riffled through her memories. “Em, oh, well... I guess Kreacher as first a House Elf and then a High Sidhe… and… no, none of the others could have impregnated me…”

Hermione tried biting her tongue to see how that would feel, scribbling furiously to catch up.

“... and the Boggart…”

Hermione shivered remembering about that.

“And of course Dunstan,” Luna said, signaling she was finished with a small, satisfied smile and a little nod. “Yes, that’s it.”

Hermione spluttered a moment. “You fucked  _ Dunstan?” _

Luna looked at her with an expression of genuine curiosity. “Don’t you like him? He helped me through a difficult day. He’s ever so precocious, especially for his species - I thought you’d find common ground there.”

Hermione folded her arms, her lips twitching. “Something’s off about him. And sometimes he beats me to the book I want to read in the library  _ And  _ he scared me there once.”

Luna canted her head. “Blending in with the busts on pedastols?”

Hermione shook her head. “No - well,  _ once _ \- but I knew it must be him because there hadn’t been one of a Valkyrie before. But I catch him looking at me sometimes, too. Like he’s trying to figure me out, but not be, you know,  _ talking _ to me, and that’s creepy.”

Luna furrowed her brow. “I’ll figure out something for him to do on the estate and talk to him about his social graces.”

Hermione looked shocked by both of these declarations. “But, five minutes ago you were laughing about pranking Harry together and you’ve just said you might be carrying his child, and… and…  _ social graces? _ ”

Luna shrugged. “I trust your judgement more than my own.” Luna looked uncharacteristically serious. “You tried to warn me off Cormac, and to tell me that Blaise never meant to meet me in Hogsmeade that day. You can be a bit… overprotective… but your feeling safe in this house is of paramount importance to me. I think it might just be lack of socialization on his part - and I want him to continue to work on that and teaching the elves to letters - but perhaps he should have his own of the 150-odd empty homes in  Cashlanshie , and I suspect he could start helping to assess what was needed so others could live there again. I’ll set the wards so he’ll have to announce himself like anyone else when he visits or departs Cadracally, too.”

Hermione blinked at her, then burst into tears and fell into her arms.

Luna reflected, as she felt Hermione’s face soaking her shirt, that they seemed to abraid each other in all the right ways to draw out the poisons each of them had been carrying unwittingly for long times. She held her sister close, stroked her hair, and let her have the time she needed. Hermione never took as long to vent as she probably should, but Luna’d noticed that that she was getting better about that, and she wasn’t sure anything else she’d ever done was more worthwhile than helping this incredible friend heal.

When she was done, she raised her head, her voice hoarse a moment. “Sorr-”

She saw Luna’s eyes flaring in warning.

“Em,  _ thank you _ , Luna, that helped. I'm... it's been a long time since anyone's been all trusting and protective of me.”

Luna calmed and nodded, giving Hermione a little sad smile. “Always.”

Hermione cast drying and cleansing charms on Luna’s shoulder and her own face. “Anyway, em, do you want to be surprised about species, or do you want to know?”

Luna looked perplexed. “Of course I want to know.”

Hermione nodded. “And would you like to know each fetus’s...?” She gestured vaguely at her groin.

Luna looked more perplexed. “Why would I care about their genitalia? Do people actually ask about that?”

Hermione smiled a little. “Not everyone is you. Alright, let’s see then…”

Hermione consulted a pocket reference for Creature Breeding, and then another for Magical Obstetrics, after which she jotted out some Arithmancy equations. “I’m going to write all this out later, as I’m rather making all this up as I go along. No one but the Lovegoods have ever needed to know such things before in the Wizarding World, so…”

Luna laughed.

Hermione looked at her strangely. “What?”

Luna blinked. “You weren’t joking?”

“I… didn’t intend to be? What do you know?”

Luna bit her lip. “Almost every magical bloodline  _ at least _ has some Veela in it - no matter what Nott’s peerage books might say. We seek it out and write it down in my family, rather than covering it up, but unless you haven’t come into contact with magical creatures, at least every three generations someone is going to wonder what rutting with a satyr or a nymph would be like, or someone cleverer will wonder about someone stranger but cleverer, and every one in three or so of those cases is results in a child. If that child is less blighted by the fruits of inbreeding or easier to produce than another tragedy with one’s cousin-spouse, it’s often discreetly hidden from the nonhuman parent and brought up as heir.”

Hermione mused. “So what you’re saying is that publishing these spells and selling them shrewdly could be exceptionally lucrative, in the ideal fashion of separating prejudiced hypocrites from their money.”

Luna considered. “Yes.”

Hermione smiled. “I think politics make everyone a little bit Slytherin in the end. At least I won’t track or blackmail, though.”

Luna smiled. “Go on then, work your magic.”

Hermione nodded. “The way I’ve worked it out, you’ll see the faces of your partners as the genetic material that impregnated you entered your body - it’s the easiest sort of trace I can concoct in so little time. It’ll be in your memories, so… you had bloody well better tell me, because  _ I  _ want to know, too, especially if you expect me to monitor you and delivery your brood intelligently. Also,” she admitted, blushing furiously, “I’m damned curious.”

“Of course,” Luna said, adjusting her position for comfort and closing her eyes.

She heard Hermione mutter a long, convoluted-seeming incantation.

And then…

“Mmm…” Luna said, an image beginning to form of a familiar face crying out in repletion. “Ronan… I hadn’t gotten to see that at the time, but it’s nice to witness after the fact. Oh, another… em… alright… it’s just dark? … oh, the  _ Boggart _ , I’m remembering the texture of her ears. And,” she bit her lip, a familiar lovely visage that didn’t quite fit the soul beneath it swimming into her mind’s eye, lips parted in ecstasy, “Kreacher.” 

Hermione sat back, both processing this and trying to be there for Luna. “You seem… less thrilled than I would hope for about that last one?”

Luna smiled sadly. “They say wild magic, fae magic, is mischievous. I’m not at all convinced that boon was actually good for him - and yes, it was in his new form that he inseminated me. I’m worried this will simply make him more adamant that this change was a good thing. I’d hoped, if I had his child, it would be one of  _ his _ body.”

Hermione nodded in understanding. “I’m certain he feels better, being young again, but I think that having two bonds might have rejuvenated him a great deal anyway - and I worry about what it says about Kreacher’s state of mind that he would need to look like an entirely different person of an altogether different species to feel worthy of you.”

Luna shook her head a little. “He’s not thrilled about being high fae; I think he’d rather be altogether human, but the bond doesn’t seem to have changed the essential nature of his magic, so maybe that’s why it went for the closest physical approximation. He… isn’t forthcoming about why, though. It seem odd.”

“I think…” Hermione started, biting at her thumbnail. “I think we should get him talking to a mind healer before the child is born, and I know some I can refer, but you ought to talk to him about it first.” 

“Would you?” Luna asked, relieved. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

Hermione sighed. “I always sort of liked his grumpy old mug and that Tom Waits sort of voice, even when he did call me Mudblood, and he’d gotten…  _ so  _ much better.” She shook her head. “That said… the body he’s in wasn’t taken from anyone else, really, just his imagination and memory and your magic, and it  _ is _ his body now. I’m not sure we should judge, not when statue-boy doesn’t even remember his natural form and Boggarts and Animagi and all sorts of others just  _ luck into _ being able to change at will. I’m trying not to… over-analyse Kreacher, with approximately my usual level of success at not thinking about anything, obviously _. _ ”

Luna smiled, grasping Hermione’s hand. “Yes. Hmm. You do do that, don’t you? But it often works well for you.”

The brunette shook her head. “Does it? Good. Then I’ll keep researching boons, but you know you’ve more in your library than any other on record about this stuff, and the only promising I’ve learned yet is by worth of mouth anyway - Went heard they can be  _ given  _ away. But… I don’t think Kreacher would  _ want  _ to.” 

Luna rolled over to her side pulled her sitting sister down to lie facing her. Then, she started massaging Hermione’s temples. 

Hermione moaned, grateful. “You always know when I’ve started to get a headache.”

Luna gave her a speculative little smile. “It’s nice, you know. Hearing someone else rant about so many of the same things I’ve been thinking. I do wish you’d learn to let go of some of the agitation, though. Give me another chance to teach you yoga?”

Hermione fumed. “Fine.” She struggled to relax the muscles of her face under Luna’s fingers. “Who will you tell first?”

Luna considered, knowing Hermione was referring to her pregnancy, as she moved her stroking hands down to Hermione’s neck. “After I talk about the other matter to Dunstan, during which time I might as well also tell him he’s not in contention, Neville. Neville always hears everything, and hears it from me quickly, so he’s first. He’ll be home tonight after class, so I’ll let him know. Then… I should probably tell Kreacher next, but I…” She furrowed her brow. “I agree, about the mind healer. I need to think about that before I do it, because I think I’ll need to bring that up, which will need delicacy. So I think I’ll tell the Boggart, then Ronan, then him. Then… others who may have hoped. Oh,” she added, biting her lip. “I’m going to tell Dunstan I saw him looking at you, not that you complained. I don’t imagine he’d retaliate, but… oh, don’t give me that look - I get to take care of you, too.”

Hermione looked at her, hesitating only a moment before nodding. “It makes sense. Godric, I hate to think of you doing all this without me to talk to. Did you pull all these mad stunts just to rouse my protective instincts into claiming you?” Hermione poked Luna’s side.

Luna flinched away, giggling. “No, but that would have been clever of me, wouldn’t it?”

“Damn right it would have been,” Hermione tickled her with a vengeance, “We should have gotten into fights and pulled each other’s hair as little girls! This is so… cathartic! Take  _ that _ . Ah haha!”

Luna’s response to Hermione’s crowing onslaught was broken up by little shrieks and giggles before she managed to pin the other woman beneath her for some just desserts, cracking her knuckles. “Never too late!”


	2. A Rock in a Soft Place

It was perhaps an hour later that Luna disengaged herself from the now-napping Hermione - they’d thoroughly worn themselves out and then, 25 years late, enjoyed a good cuddle. It was with a deeper than usual level of dreamy distraction that Luna went looking for Dunstan in his eyrie.

He had her up against the wall and was dragging up her skirt before she had a word out of her mouth, which was soon covered by his besides. Figuring it could only put them both in a gentle mood, she enjoyed the interlude with enthusiasm; whatever else he might be, Dunstan was a gifted lover.

So it was that, sated and sweaty, she again lay draped over him, gazing up and studying his face. She admitted to herself that there was something… curious about him. Among other things, she didn’t think she’d ever heard of any shapeshifter  _ forgetting _ their true form before - but most chameleon ghouls didn’t really stand about to be questioned, she supposed.

He glanced down at her, his glowing eyes hooded. “A knut for your thoughts, love?”

She smiled slightly. “Just looking at my Pygmalion and wondering what I don’t know about him yet. But… I do have other matters to broach with you.”

He lazily reached down to start teasing her with his fingers, smiling smugly. “Credited with hidden depths, am I? None so deep as yours, I’m certain.”

Luna shrugged, smirking herself as he rubbed and pulled at her. “All the same. Mmm. But - Dunstan, I’m pregnant.”

There was a hitch to his movement as he looked down at her, looking suddenly more awake.

She slowly shook her head, giving him a sympathetic smile. “Not this time.”

Her wording seemed to encourage him, and his fingers found their rhythm again. “I’ll be gentle with you, until then.” He lent down to sweetly kiss her. “Congratulations, Luna. I’m happy for you.”

She nodded, pushing herself against his hand with little rolls of her hips. “Also, I have a job for you, if you’ll take it, and a gift.”

He sighed happily, dipping a finger into her. “I do enjoy being of use. And your presents.”

She smiled. “I’d like you to pick a house in Calanshie for yourself. It’ll be yours, to live in or sell or pass down.” She shifted her hips enough to drag her center against his hand with each little rut, biting her lip a moment before she continued. “The job… involves making it habitable and making an updated accounting of the number, location, characteristics, and conditions of all the other structures there, because I’d like to invite people to settle here.”

He grunted, shifting her and lifting her up, putting her astride him. He made use of the new position to watch her face, his curiosity clearly piqued, and also to ease her down once more onto his again-engorged cock, moving his hand to continue attending to her swollen bud.

She’d been rolling her hips for several minutes, expectant but responsive and warm, before he spoke. “Not to be under your roof anymore?”

She looked down at him, putting an index in his mouth for him to lick and suck as she rode him and replied. “No. I haven’t liked the way you’ve been looking at Hermione, and I think you’re hiding something. Care to tell me why, or what?”

He looked up at her curiously, his sucking paused. She slipped her finger from his unresisting lips, bracing her palms on his chiseled stomach and starting to bounce quickly over him. Both of them lost themselves in sensation for several minutes, until she slowed once more to a languorous roll.

Finally, he spoke softly. “I can’t. I’d never harm you, though, Luna. I’m utterly besotted with you, if you can’t tell.”

She nodded, smoothing a hand over his cheek. “Leave my sister be. Visit. Teach the elves. Make friends as more people move here.” She sighed contentedly, shifting to brace herself leaning back against his knees. “Learn to be part of a community. Visit me. I’ll visit you. Make a list of the places and objects that belong to you that you’d like to christen with our congress in your new home and we’ll work through it.”

He looked up at her, reaching down to drag his cool fingertips over the curves and dips along the fronts of her hips. 

“As my lady bids me, so shall I do.”

She smiled a bit sheepishly, coloring. “I  _ am _ beginning to sound like the lady of this place. It’s … hmm. I like it better than I thought I might. I just might do some good here.”

He smiled up at her, aching, but locking away his sadness. “I am certain of that.”

Then all conversation ceased as he grasped her hips and started moving her more quickly over him.


	3. Official

###  **March, 2011, Ministry of Magic, London, UK**

The next day, by special arrangement with the Minister, Luna and Neville eloped in the Ministry courtyard in the snow. Hermione stood by her, and Harry stood by him, and Kingley made the words simple and sweet.

The now-newlyweds had had a long night of talking and planning, and though Luna could see a little sorrow that none she carried were of his get, his very next thought was to ask if eloping would be alright with her. He explained that he thought it might make their lives a little easier to have his name and status in the Wizarding world from before their birth. He had the sort of solicitors’ firm that was staffed overnight, and so they prepared a contract that would, if anything happened, enable them to part with minimal fuss and their own things, and which also stipulated by Wizarding law that any issue either of them produced during their marriage would be adopted by the other automatically at birth regardless of its heritage - without removing the rights and status of any other parents who might be involved outside the couple. There were delicate modifications made to all the standard clauses that condemned infidelity, in accordance with their prior agreements. Purebloods had a history of covering their bases with triple and quadruple marriage alliances, and sometimes even handmaids or studboys, for the sake of producing heirs. The fashion had changed, so these things were rarer now, but that the legal legacy of their calculation benefitted Luna and Neville now seemed poetic. 

After they’d summoned and dismissed the solicitor, and Neville had asked Hermione scads of questions Luna hadn’t been anxious enough to think of, there had been quite a bit of celebratory love made. There was one stubborn tangle yet-unsnarled in Luna’s hair, hidden by the fascinator she’d borrowed from among her mother’s things for the occasion, but they both knew it was there - just as everyone saw the lovebites peppering his neck.

It was a simple, beautiful day.

Kreacher had made a circumspect withdrawal from the evening’s festive dinner party - he congratulated them, then retired to his new, human-sized bedroom, but he had smiled at them both. Went, Took, and Stoke all seemed overjoyed at the news. 

Harry and Hermione kept just missing each other’s glances until one stuck near the end of the evening, and then both colored and soon went to bed.

And Luna was too occupied being a newlywed to have conversations until the next morning.


	4. Bright Tidings for Dark Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna visits the Boggart.

###  March, 2011, Back to Cadracally Castle , Rathlin Island

Luna fidgeted with the new ring on her left hand as she descended the stairs after breakfast. She’d thought he might get her one - she’d visited the family’s treasury room to find his, a platinum band etched with a simple design of plants and flowers. Hers was also platinum, and held a large and remarkably striated lozenge-shaped aquamarine that beautifully matched her pale eyes. It was edged with tiny sapphires and pearls in a delicate filigree, and despite its bulk, was charmed to be so comfortable she barely felt it. And, she thought, a number of protection charms

Her heart held many, but of them only two were solicitous, thoughtful, preoccupied with what they could do to make her happy. She felt exceptionally grateful for both of them.

Shaking her head, she returned her mind to one she enjoyed but would be glad to help move on.

Finally, several flights down into the living rock, Luna came to the utter dark of the old dungeon. It was full of wooden crates and old trunks now, in addition to its open cells, and apparently was a very cozy haven if one happened to be a Boggart.

“Hello,” she said into the dark, keeping her hand on the railing.

“Luna!” came the kaleidoscopic reply. It was a mix of different feminine sounding voice that spoke her name today before she was swept into a four-armed hug against four velvety and frankly quite delicious breasts. The witch blinked back a wave of wet pooling between her beleaguered thighs, still sore from several consummations devoutly to be wished, and forced her attention to the matter at hand.

The Boggart, though, seemed to have smelled something. “Oh! Do mean to offer to try again? I…didn’t think you’d offer but I  _ couldn’t  _ refuse, and I’d be lying to say I hadn’t thought-”

“Oh, er…” Luna interjected gently as the Boggart’s hands began to wander, blinking and taking a deep breath that was meant to gather her thoughts but only gave the other time to fondle and knead. “Mmmm… I … oh… can’t, but… well, we succeeded.”

The Boggart’s curious hands paused. “What?” she whispered, sitting on the floor and carrying Luna with her and into her lap.

Luna smiled, pulling the other’s great vulpine head down into a congratulatory embrace. “We’re going to be mothers together. I’m having triplets. Of them, one is yours.”

After a ragged breath, the Boggart squeezed her tight and held her, shuddering with sobs. “We… we  _ are?!” _

Luna nodded and held this unlikely friend through little tremors and hiccups until she calmed. It took perhaps twenty minutes, and a few affectionate licks to Luna’s cheeks. “Mother!” the Boggart wept in many voices, “Mother, mother!”

She struggled, finally, to weave all four of her hands over the softness of Luna’s still-flat belly. “ _ Thank _ you. Oh, I was horrible, and you… thank you, thank you, Luna, thank you.”

Luna sighed, grateful to be a part of this. “There are also a few other things, but that is undoubtedly the most important. Do you need time?”

She felt the Boggart shaking her head. “No. But I’m half-inclined to just hold you and feed you and keep you safe here with me in the dark for the next - how long?”

“Well,” Luna said, canting her head thoughtfully. “Possibly as much as six months, but I suspect, given that they’re triplets and that something in my family’s blood carries quicker, I would guess more like three or four.”

The Boggart tensed. “Feeding! I’m going to feed you. You’re miniscule! You can’t possibly have enough flesh for this!”

Luna laughed. “One of our child’s siblings, though he doesn’t know it yet and I hope you’ll let me keep the surprise, is one of the elves in the house. I’m certain there will be no need.”

It was funny, Luna thought, to feel rather than see someone’s bearing brighten.

“Oh! Which of them? Will you let me know when I can say congratulations? They’re lovely, all of them - they’ve been incredibly kind. I’ve… even learned from one, about the curse - I’ve been meaning to say.”

Luna smiled shyly, her cheeks coloring for some reason she would examine at another time. “Kreacher.”

The Boggart let out a whoop. “Oh thank cupboards and sideboards for that! Such a wonderful old grump I have never before met - his fear is mostly memory, and he’s good at slipping around his own thoughts, which makes it easier not to go after him, too. He’s the one who discussed my kind’s situation with me. Been a little funny, him changing shape, but he won’t talk about it. I offered - I know about shifting, after all.”

Luna gnawed at her lower lip as she considered all this. “It has. I… am a bit anxious about that whole debacle. But - did Boggarts once have a different name? Only, he called you something I’ve only heard of in tales. A Phooka.”

The Boggart booped her on the nose. “Exactly. When he told me I tried, though, and I think I can’t say it - any of the variations on it.”

Luna nodded thoughtfully. “Hmm. Yes. I think… yes, I think I know who to talk to about fixing this. I would be so thrilled for you to be able to see anything in human minds but fear. Or for you to be able to walk in the sun. Oh! And, well, I did this - ”

Luna offered the Boggart a copy of  _ The Daily Prophet _ and another of  _ The Quibbler. _ Both featured large advertisements for a 25 galleon reward for, in lieu of destroying them, containing any found Boggarts in small shipping boxes and owling them to Hogwarts for a curse-breaking project, Luna knew, though she couldn’t actually read it in the pitch black.

“You… did this for us?” the Boggart whispered in a masculine tone that just lifted to a child’s voice at the end.

Luna nodded. “The Headmistress was horrified to hear of your situation and happy to help. I’m… not ready to call attention to the fact the castle’s occupied again, not widely, but I’ll Floo to pick up the first arrivals later today. There are five so far.”

Luna held the Boggart through more wailing, and a few wet-nosed apologies. Then she was banished to lunch with instructions to have seconds.


	5. Grimmer Apparitions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luna goes to tell Ronan the news, but there's trouble in the Forbidden Forest...

###  March, 2011, Hogwarts & The Forbidden Forest

After she ate, chatting with Took as he sat with a second bowl of soup beside her, Luna stepped through the hearth to Neville’s small apartment at Hogwarts. She stepped into the cheery little yellow sitting area and fed his fish, watered the plants he’d brought to his own windowsill, and left a little shell from the beach near the castle on his pillow for his return Monday night. Fortunately, his rooms had a door directly to the outdoors behind the greenhouses - she  _ would  _ stop to see the Headmistress, but didn't want to be scolded for the rather sudden wedding announcement in today’s  _ Prophet _ before her other business was done.

It was a brisk day, but it portended times without scarves ahead, and she revelled in the sunshine as she picked up Neville’s old broom and mounted it, pausing to charm the pebble in her pocket to let him know, via its twin, that she was on her way before she took off.

##  _ ❧  _

She arrived to an empty glade, but with the heat from the spring, a riot of bluebells and irises were blooming around it - and there were fairies enjoying them - small, common fairies, the same that often took refuge in the Great Hall in Christmas trees over winter to escape the bitter cold. She supposed she couldn’t blame them for indulging early in the delights of May. 

Leaning the broom against an ancient pine, Luna stretched, and after a moment of thought, tucked her wand behind her ear and vanished her clothes into a bundle and put them aside. There would likely be time to run through her yoga, and in this place, it would be absurd to pass the opportunity up. Carefully stepping around the tiny fae, she made her way to a flat expanse of moss near the water’s edge, pausing to pull out her field journal and sketch a winged couple making one blue-belled stem bounce with their enthusiastic coupling. Being small and light was useful for so many things. She wondered if she’d grow rounder after motherhood, or if she’d return to something like her still-willowy shape. She’d be delighted either way, she supposed, and couldn’t wait to find out.

She wrote some notes and was just tucking her journal away when another of the tiny fae winged toward her, waving. She watched it come closer, intrigued when she saw that a low, taut bump filled out the beautiful little creature’s stomach; it would be rude to presume, of course, but it appeared they shared a condition. 

The fairy, it turned out, new. She flew right up to Luna’s belly and rubbed her own distended one against it affectionately and then hovered up in front of Luna’s face, a radiant smile on her tiny lips. Her hair and skin were the color of cherry-stained wood, and she was wearing a yellow skirt fashioned from the petals of a daffodil. She happily buzzed and laughed for several seconds, darting up to hug Luna soundly on the nose, before she zipped away again. 

Luna blinked, an awed smile touching her lips for a moment before she gathered herself again and took notes on the experience. She’d never studied fae creatures specifically, particularly not less intelligent subspecies, but perhaps, knowing what she knew now, that should change.

And then, amid the buzzing and the laughter in the flowers, she folded herself into child’s pose and began.

She was in Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana pose when she heard… multiple sets of hoofbeats. She sat up and magicked herself clothed as she stood, summoning the broom to her hand, and, after a moment of looking around her, stepping out of the clearing in the direction of the noise. There was no need for the fairies to be harmed by anything that was underway.

In the cold shaded air beyond the trees, Luna blinked at the tableau.

Firenze and Ronan were approaching, and between them they tried to support a smaller, stumbling centaur with a riotous red main and heavy … bracelets around her ankles? No. No, those were… 

She ran toward them, realizing that theirs weren’t the only hoofbeats she’d heard.

##  _ ❧  _

They looked up as she ran to them. Rhiannon had a split lip and a hoot-shaped bruise on her ribs, and her feet were weighted with thick iron hobbles - likely incredibly painful despite the absence of chains.

“Luna!” Ronan called out to her, sounding both terrified and relieved to see her as he darted a look over his shoulder. “Em, funny you should come now, only-”

“Moon-witch, we will be killed if they catch us.” Firenze cut in, his deep voice reverberating with all the stately seriousness that Ronan lacked. “Your power cracks from you. Can you take us from this place with it?”

Luna blinked, holding up the aged broom meekly. “I… all I have is…”

Firenze gave his head one sharp shake. “Can you  _ Apparate _ us from here?”

Ronan, holding his sister up, just looked at her, hopeful and worried. “We would never.. But… she can’t.”

Luna remembered being angry.

“Tell me what happened to her.”

“But-” Ronan began, only for her to cut him off with a hoarse whisper.

“I ran, Luna. My last heat, I ran. I stayed hidden through it, the bastard, but they found me and he had me  _ hobbled _ for my crime.” She coughed, looking at Luna through large, dark eyes. “Ronan just learned. It’s been over a month this way, but eventually, I knew he would  _ brag.” _ She spat, mouth snarling. “I’d rather die than go back there.”

Ronan shrugged despondently, looking down at his sister. “But they won’t kill her for this. Firenze and I, on the other hand… it’s a glorious excuse.” He looked back to Luna, blinking. “Love, are you…?”

“Hmm. Glowing, yes. It happens sometimes when I’m upset,” she said absently, glancing down at the white glow of her hands. “Everyone hold on to me, please. A hand for each of you, Firenze and Ronan - Rhiannon, I’ll grasp you about the waist.”

“I see them! They’re just ahead!” came a shout from far too close.

Luna took a deep breath, one hand grasping the other.  _ Destination. Determination…  _ Desperation _. _

###  Cadracally Castle , Rathlin Island

As they arrived in the Great Hall of a more distant Castle, both Luna and Rhiannon sank to their knees while Ronan shouted for help.

Luna just saw Hermione rounding the bend, Harry and Neville close behind her,  _ just _ had long enough to smile, before her eyes closed.


	6. Kreacher Comforts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who looks after Luna?

She woke in her bed in the dark to the sound of a someone humming “Hush-a-Ba Birdie.” It took her a moment to recognize the hand in hers, and then the voice.

Her voice croaked from disuse when she spoke. “Well, that was exciting.”

The humming suddenly stopped, and in the dark a figure leaned forward toward her, lighting a candle on the bed stand with a snap of his long fingers. “M… Luna. Kr… I’ve been so  _ worried.  _ What were you  _ thinking _ , dragging those three pompous ponies all this way, alone? Rhiannon, maybe, but the others could have run!”

She smoothed her hand out across the blankets beside her on the other side, finding them smooth and undisturbed. “Where’s-”

“Mistress Hermione dragged Master Neville to the great hearth, threw Powder, and pushed him through. Said he needed sleep, yes,” he said in a beautiful, wrong voice, raking his hair back out of his face as if the fact of it were a nuisance. Eyes cleared, then, he leaned closer, looking anxiously at her. “Kr-I knew y-you and the ruddy one were close, Luna, but.” He sat back, glowering at her in irritation even as his hand tightened on her own. “Stay here. Kreacher will fetch you some broth and tea with honey. I  _ will.” _ He sighed. “Hitting my head on everything, can’t move my ears one bit. At least I’m young and pretty, eh?” He smiled wearily, smoothing his thumb over the back of her hand before disappearing with a crack.

It only took him a minute or two to reappear with the footed tray she remembered from when she and Father had made Mother breakfast in bed. Under the attentive administration of the elves, though, it now was completely free of spiders and had a little vase holding a crocus on it beside a small feast for the infirm. Luna was terribly parched, and she reached first for the tea.

She drained the cup and sat back against the pillows Kreacher had already arranged such that she could sit up against them. “You knew I liked extra honey in my tea when I feel poorly.”

Kreacher colored around his now high-boned cheeks and glanced down. “I am attentive to you, yes. It is my job.”

She watched as he leaned forward to pour and fix her another cup. “I wish it weren’t… quite that. It feels like it should make a difference, now that I love you.”

His hands stilled a moment before they kept moving, stirring in honey with the grace he’d always had. “Kr…  _ I _ think you may have hit your pretty head when you fell, Mis…  _ Mrs.  _ Longbottom.”

She smiled, accepting the cup as he offered it to her, letting their fingers brush and meeting her eyes.

_ He would never have been so bold as to hand it to me rather than putting it in front of me. To touch me. To look at me to let me know he knew and he intended it. _ She nodded in thanks and sipped thoughtfully. There were some upsides to this transformation, as unnecessary as it had been to everyone but… him.

She drank it, all of it, slowly before she spoke. “Still Dr. Lovegood. We each took the other’s surname as a middle name. I thought we should combine the two, but Neville wasn’t comfortable with the various options I suggested. Although,” she said, batting his hand away from the pot and making the next cup herself, “I suspect Harry and Hermione will be telling everyone to call us the Lovebottoms, now.”

Kreacher sat back and looked at her unhappily. “Kreacher wishes you every happiness, Mistress Luna,” he said dully, not trying to catch himself.

Luna looked at him over the rim of her cup as she sipped, but didn’t respond until she put the cup down again on its saucer. “Don’t call me that, Kreacher,” she said quietly. “You promised.”

His face crumpled with guilt. “Should have picked a cat, Mistress. No words to get wrong, and you could still hold me.” He dashed a tear from the corner of his eye, determinedly ignoring the others that followed.

Luna’s lips parted in a moue of understanding. “Kreacher… did you think I’d break my  _ vow  _ to you? You…” she shook her head, searching for a word and finding instead her new friend anger. “You  _ daft old bat! _ ”

He looked up, shocked. She recognized the expression. His ears should be standing straight up right now. He was alert but did not yet understand.

“Kreacher, where is my wand?” she fumed, impatient.

Silently, he withdrew it from a pocket and handed it to her. She muttered over it and it grew into a long staff, which she leaned on as she swung her legs out of the bed and stood, finding that … it had to be Hermione… had clothed her in the least indecent sleeping shift she owned, which was simple blue silk and fell to just below the tops of her thighs. 

She also found she was a bit dizzy. 

Kreacher knocked his chair over rushing to steady her, but she swatted at the air to repel him. “I’m fine. I just… Wait. Here.”

He righted the chair with a wave of his hand and obediently sat, his posture smaller than it had ever been when he was shorter.

##  _ ❧  _

He stood again when she stepped back in from the bathroom twenty minutes later, beads of water running over her skin wherever it wasn't wrapped in towels but moving entirely under her own power, droplets dripping from the low end of her wand where it perched above her ear.

“Thank you,” she said, sounding more dreamily abstract, more herself. “I take it I’d been in bed a while.”

Kreacher nodded. “Two and a half days. I changed the sheets for you, while you bathed,” he said, standing with his hands folded behind his back like an attentive footman. 

Luna paused before climbing back up onto the mattress. “Thank you. Did… Did Hermione say anything about..,?”

Kreacher nodded. “Mistress Hermione-”

Luna shook her finger at him. 

Kreacher, exasperated, glared at her a moment and then continued. “ _ Hermione, _ ” he said, loitering over each syllable, “said that you were magically exhausted, but otherwise entirely well and as you had been. She asked that I convey your condition to you in just those words, should you wake on my watch.”

Luna took a deep breath and stumbled slightly in relief. 

His arms were around her before she could right her stance.

And then she looked up at him. 

Discomfort and agitation dawning on his face, he squirmed, but could look at nothing else but her eyes as he held her there.

“Kreacher,” she said, “I have promised Neville my life-long love and to take no other purely human man to my body or my heart. We explicitly, repeatedly discussed, and then discussed  _ again _ , with the marriage contract solicitors, our mutual disinterest in monogamy. He doesn’t anticipate exercising his freedom, but he is happy - not just at peace with,  _ happy _ \- for me to exercise mine. And I will. I will people this castle again from my body and I will love widely and well, and again and again as my heart moves me, and in a few cases, that love will endure. I had hoped… that is… if you want …”

His eyes widened.

She sighed and just kissed him. He allowed her to but was slow to respond, pulling back to look at her when she let him go. “Luna…” he breathed. “I… hmm… speak plainly to a poor elf, please, who has too frequently been quite a fool.”

Luna looked up at him. “Be my lover, because I love you, and I think you might love me too. Stay my lover. I don’t anticipating ever wanting to part with you. Let’s rut ourselves silly and make little strange fae babies and raise them to be as happy as we were miserable. That is what I want. Will you consider it?”

He gently pulled the towels away from her and lifted her onto the bed, hovering the tray away and laying down beside her. “No. I have already chosen. May I, Luna? May I again?”

She nodded vehemently. “Yes,” she said, vanishing his shirt and trousers. He looked down with a wet smile before he moved his body over hers and seared kisses down her neck. 

“Yes,” she breathed. He supported his weight on his elbows, just below her arms, caging her ribs.

“ _ Yes!” _ she cried as he parted his knees with his, before his mouth swallowed hers with a kiss.

“No!” she fumed as his mouth started moving toward her chest, pulling him back up to her lips and arching up into him.

With a groan, half-yearning and half-defeated, he positioned himself at her threshold. “ _ Luna _ is a demanding… well...  _ everything _ , Kreacher thinks.”

Growling up at him, she wrapped her legs around him, using them to lift herself up and pull him into her.

“Yes!” Kreacher cried, frozen in the overwhelming grasp of her.

Snarling, she flipped herself over him, grinding down against him to take in the entirety of him as she positioned her knees along his sides.

_ “Yes!” _ He gasped, rutting up into her helplessly as she began to move.

She rode him at a gallop, without mercy, showing him the rawness of her power, her skill, and the absolute, selfish sincerity of her desire.

“Oh, Luna,  _ yes!”  _ He nearly sang.

Feeling them both near a precipice from this unsubtle show of strength, she seized his hand, her eyes burning down at him as she worked him in and out of her, her hips flying over his supine, arched, embattled form. She kissed his palm.

“Yes,” he whispered, looking up at her and conceding his heart was already hers, that he knew her and also loved her, that he would until death pried him away.

With a small smile, fighting back the tide rushing and battering within her, she held his gaze, pressing his hand to her belly and giving him a decisive, telling nod.

“Luna!” He cried, his eyes impossibly wide before they slammed shut, his arching thrusts beneath her tossing her up above the reach of her knees with each stroke torn from his body. Struggling, he surged up to sit on his heels, hugging her to him as she too convulsed with pleasure, crushingly embracing him inside and out as he came within her as she cried out.

“Yes! Yes! Ours! Yes!”

##  _ ❧  _

When he woke to sunrise the next morning they were still holding each other, face to face, nose tips brushing occasionally when she would shift. It was an intimacy of a magnitude Kreacher had never known before, and he lay there, wanting to hold his breath to keep from shattering it, looking at her.

“Improbable coloration… indicates… soggy toast… footballs and quaffles rain, rain,” she murmured peacefully, still asleep.

His eyes widened in absolute adoration even as he quelled the urge to laugh.

And then,  _ remembering _ , he let his ( _ his! _ ) hand drift down to cup against her stomach with awe. He looked down at the unchanged shape of her and wondered, his hand half-inadvertently smoothing over her in little strokes, who their child would be.


	7. The Future for Cashlanshie

Luna woke alone, warm in the bright midmorning light streaming in the windows that half-surrounded her tower bedroom. She stretched and sighed and turned over onto her stomach to feel it on her other side. 

And then she started remembering - last night, happily, and then the episode with the centaurs, and that she hadn’t been able to bring home the Boggarts. Which is what levered her up and out of bed to pull on a jumper and jeans and slip thick on her feet, then head downstairs to the kitchen, which had really become the heart of the castle. 

"Good morning!" She called, bounding in smiling to see Kreacher, Stoke, and Hermione talking around the large peninsula counter, which was set with a large teapot and scones. She hugged her sister, who turned back a sleepy reply, then Stoke, and then pulled Kreacher into an appreciative, full body kiss, which he reciprocated happily, though he was pink when their lips separated. Stoke and Hermione were both smiling at the two as if quite pleased that had apparently been sorted out.

Hermione burst out laughing at the looks warring on Kreacher’s face, who appeared to be simultaneously confounded and deliriously pleased, as Luna turned in his arms, snuggling her back to his front and pulling his arms securely around her waist before she started topping up his tea for him.

“Thank you, Hermione, for taking care of me. I hope it wasn’t a bother. I had no idea what would happen when I got there.”

Hermione smirked up at her, exchanging looks with the two elves. “Yes, well. Your family expects a certain amount of drama to follow you, but here we all are anyhow. Oh,” she said, eyes widening as she remembered. “Neville had to go back to teach but he’ll see you Friday and is glad you’re well, and wants you to know that his students are all slipping and calling him Professor Lovebottom, Long-good, Long-love, Lovelong, and our  _ personal  _ favorite, Lovebottom, but that he’s absolutely delighted to inform you that the new Transfiguration teacher has stopped flirting with him and he misses you and wants you to think about where you’d like to honeymoon at Easter. He’ll be around Friday after supper as usual.”

Luna nodded, raising her own cuppa to her lips contentedly. “I need to go and get the Boggarts.”

Hermione shook her head. “No, that’s all sorted. Neville got them from Minerva when he returned and Flooed back with them briefly. We delivered them straight to the dungeon in boxes and  _ The  _ Boggart was beside herself with delight.”

Kreacher nodded, tucking a lock of her white-blonde hair behind her ear and looking at her over her own shoulder. “Kreacher is working on convincing her that she needs a name, yes, and has brought her some books on the subject. We also… talked, briefly, and Kr… oh, but this is tedious to learn…  _ I _ am to see that  _ you,  _ Luna, are well fed, especially these next few months.”

Luna looked up at him and kissed his cheek. “Is Took thrilled?”

He grinned, his thoughts beginning to look more natural behind Regulus Black’s features, albeit framed by the pointed ears of the High Sidhe. “Beside himself, M...Luna. There’s quiche and bowls of cut fruit in the larder, and he’s gone off in search of new sources of cocoa for you to try.”

Hermione slid a brown glass medicine bottle across the counter to her. “Also, I picked you up some more prenatal vitamins.”

Luna immediately popped one in her mouth and washed it down. “Thank you. I think I’ll get myself some of the qui-”

“You will  _ not _ .” Kreacher shook his head at her, these eyebrows every bit the equal of his old ones when it came to knitting in ire.  _ “You _ will go and sit in the breakfast nook and Kre-”

“-And  _ Stoke _ will make you up a generous plate and warm the quiche and make some toast while Kreacher brings the tea things along and goes to sit with his lady, yes,” the other elf interjected, bustling his master and the mistresses out of the kitchen with shooing motions. Kreacher grudgingly brought the cups, saucers, and other paraphernalia bobbing after them through the air. 

Luna luxuriated in the warmth of the sun through the glass, though, and her blissful smile as she lifted her face to the light took the anxiety Kreacher felt about his shifting relationship with his fellow elves directly from his mind. He sat next to her, and Hermione, across the round table from them where she could enjoy the view of the ocean.

“What happened with our other guests?” Luna asked just before, to her delight, a heaping plate appeared before her.

“Well,” Hermione began, “I’m glad you mention that…”

##  _ ❧  _

“... so I think - I mean, that is, if you’re amenable to it - that we should start our efforts to repopulate Cashlanshie by inviting magical beings who are having a difficult time elsewhere to live here for a start. I think it wouldn’t just be the right thing to do, but would be both a step toward proving that they’re more than capable of living in harmony in mixed communities and that mindsets that keep them excluded from forming communities or their own or with others, mage or otherwise, are ultimately causing us all to lose out on everything they could contribute, given a more stable foothold in a more accepting world.” Hermione took a breath, looking to Luna anxiously as they walked through the great front door and into the cobbled courtyard. 

Luna smiled dreamily, spinning around delightedly in celebration of this first  _ warm _ day of spring. “I think it’s brilliant. Let’s do it. I was already thinking something along similar lines, actually, that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” Hermione said, looking interested. 

Luna nodded. “So it turns out that the Boggarts are really Phooka, but they were cursed. I think, from a couple things I’ve read, that Boggart form might have been a sort of devolved state some of them could be stuck in if they did evil in the beginning, but it was never mean to be the state they were all in. I think we should let them keep the Dungeon and get Bill Weasley over here, now that there’s a bit more to go on, to start work on the curse right away.”

“Ah… and when he’s here, we can talk to him about whether his family might like to settle here, and if he could maybe reach out to others he knows in the werewolf community.” Hermione said, nodding as she led them over the lowered gate where it bridged the moat.

“Exactly!” Luna said excitedly. “I also wondered if you might be able to offer this as a place for any displaced elves on the House Elf Labor Department to stay, either temporarily or permanently. I’m happy to pay, while they’re here, if they’d like to help get the estate up and running again - which I suspect will fund itself in the long term besides, as others move in. I… well, I know much less about the typical financial side of running an estate than Kreacher does, even, but I would like to make it easy for people of all kinds to become established here, and hope that we can figure out some structure of rents of taxing to cover the costs of renovating and keeping up. There’s plenty in the Treasury Room for now - mostly from Mother’s dowry, which was all bequeathed straight to me - but I would like to set something up that could serve as a fund that could be drawn from for loans without interest for those who wish to start something new, here.”

Hermione mulled over this, leading Luna down the cobbled road toward the empty town. “You know, there used to be a small branch of Gringotts here, and the Goblins might also be interested in being part of the settlement.”

Luna laughed. “Oh, father would hate that. He had an uncle who was a goblin who he was always at odds with - it’s why we kept using the treasury rather than the bank for most things. That said.. It’s a brilliant idea. Let’s ask Bill to ask his colleagues about that, too.”

“But, in the meantime,” Hermione said as she nodded in agreement, “I… well… maybe sort of offered to let Ronan, Rhiannon, and Firenze establish their own herd here, and, em, maybe worked with Harry on their instructions to go back for anyone in the camp in the Forbidden Forest who wanted to get out of Magorian’s regime.” She darted a sideways glance at her gaping sister and then rushed to continue. “And… I know of others, through my work, which I think it might be worth sending word to, as well. Which… I might already have done?”

Luna stopped in her tracks and stared at Hermione, her eyes huge. “That’s  _ brilliant!” _ The blonde swept the brunette into an enthusiastic embrace. “Oh, thank you, that’s exactly perfect!”

Hermione sank into the hug in relief. “I’m glad you aren’t cross. I’ve been family about five minutes and already am inviting people to come and stay.”

Luna shook her head vehemently. “No, no. I want you to. I want you to think of anyone you and I can help here, and of anything we can do with respect to the Ministry to make it official or protect what we’re doing here. I want this to be a real sanctuary and a settlement dedicated to interspecies cooperation. I want everyone who is willing to give community another chance after all these centuries of mages inflicting restrictive policies to be welcome here. Can we do that?”

Hermione gnawed at her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe. Let me think about it. But for now… ah! Here we are!”

Just before the village proper, Hermione pulled Luna off into the woods. “I brought them out, and they actually found this place - could have been  _ made  _ for them, clearly they’re not the first visitors here of their kind, at least.”

Luna saw a white marble statue ahead of her, and behind it, roof held up by tall Doric columns over the unfinished forest floor. Along the front edge, under the roof’s eaves, was a frieze in a familiar style that depicted centaurs and mages enjoying a feast together with… was that?... yes! There were also examples of creatures who appeared to be the half-centaurs Ronan had described as half-centaurs in the crowded scene.

As they neared, Luna could see that the statue, wrought from green connemara marble. It was clearly her mother’s work - and she must have had to magically fuse several smaller pieces, because Luna’s never known so enormous a contiguous piece of the stone to exist in Pandora’s workshop. The statue depicted a beautiful young half-centaur woman locked in a passionate kiss with a similarly handsome merwoman she was carrying in her arms. It was arresting and strange and haunting in its loveliness.

But beyond them…

“Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!” Luna jogged up to the three centaurs, who were gathered around a fire just outside the pavilion.

“Luna, oh thank goodness you’re awake and well!” Ronan rushed up and swept her into his arms, one supporting her bottom as he pulled her up off the ground. She readily wrapped her legs around his torso to help support her weight as he pulled her into a deep kiss, pouring all his relief at her recovery into it.

“Oh, that’s fine, I’ll be used to you doing that with half the people we encounter any minute now, don’t mind me,” muttered Hermione, shaking her head but also slightly smirking as she walked past them to check on Rhiannon’s freed ankles.

Luna eventually surfaced, smiling into Ronan’s eyes. “I hear you’re staying.”

He smiled, giving her a few follow-up pecks. “If you’re amenable to it, we’d like to, yes.”

She grinned. “Well, I think it’d be a good idea to keep you close,” she said, biting her lower lip and looking down between them.”

His smile turned a bit lascivious. “You want more? I  _ did _ happen to find a place…”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Maybe, but it’ll have to wait. No, I wanted to let you know that the first attempt took.”

His eyes widened. “They  _ did?!” _

She nodded, beaming at him. “Yes. I still can’t guarantee you’ll win your wager, though - I’m expecting triplets. One is yours.”

“She’ll have siblings, right from the start? Oh, but that almost  _ never _ happens for our kind! How incredible!” He danced around a bit, unable to stop the capering of his hooves as he swept her behind him and onto his back. “Rhiannon, love! You’re going to be an auntie!”

Rhiannon looked up from where Hermione bent at her feet, her face lighting up. “I am?! Oh, how incredible! Congratulations, both of you!”

“Auspicious tidings indeed,” smiled Firenze, whose pale blue eyes and blond hair reminded Luna why others sometimes found her striking, despite his deep reserve. “Are you feeling well, Ms. Lovegood?”

Luna smiled over Ronan’s shoulder. “Perfectly, actually. I’m amazed it hasn’t been more trouble, considering.”

The blonde centaur nodded thoughtfully. “The stars have said you were one who would delight in creation. Perhaps this is part of how. I think we may all benefit, who have open minds.” He bowed his head. “Thank you, by the way, for all you risked in bringing us here.”

She smiled and reached out a hand to grasp his reassuringly, then let it go. “I am so delighted to return life and laughter to this place. Thank you for being here, and I’m sorry that it was a sad road that led you to your new home.”

He smiled and nodded thoughtfully, then returned his gaze to the witch bent over his friend’s hooves. “Your sister is a remarkable woman and a gifted chirurgeon. The reconstruction she had to do of the damage around Rhiannon’s ankles was grim and extensive. Yet, after only two days…” He shook his head. “I hope she might be willing to discuss medical methodologies with me later.”

“I think,” Luna mused, watching the centaur’s eyes as they took in her sister, “that she’ll be delighted there are things you might talk about that have nothing to do with Divination.”

He shook his head. “I remember her distaste for the subject. But she is… quite the woman, now.”

Luna smiled, exchanging a glance with Ronan that confirmed her suspicions. 

“Why don’t you get to know each other better, Firenze? She’s been meaning to continue her work mapping the southern woods, and I’m sure she’d be delighted to have company and conversation while she does. I can take over changing bandages.” Luna dismounted smoothly from Ronan’s back, going to relieve Hermione from her work. It seemed fitting, somehow, to get to know Ronan’s sister in similar fashion to how she’d gotten to know him, after the war.

“Thank you, Hermione,” Rhiannon said, leaning down to hug her physician. “I feel tremendously better. I’ll be fine, here.”

Hermione looked up, having overheard but not seen the expressions of the interlocutors in the earlier conversation. “Well, I hardly ever get to talk with other healers anymore - and I know you can handle this, Luna, there’s inner wrappings soaked in salve here, along with the outer bandages.” She handed her sister a small bag, then stepped over to Firenze, smiling up at him. “You’re interested in taking the lay of this land, too? It’ll be good to have company.”

Firenze smiled thoughtfully at her a moment, his eyes darkening at her no doubt entirely innocent choice of words, before picking her up and, before she could protest, putting her down astride him and wrapping her arms around his chiseled stomach. “I cannot imagine better company for it. Point the way.”

Hermione looked like she wanted to protest, and froze in shock as she started feeling the musculature at work beneath her hands and thighs, but then just gave Luna a wide eyed little smile as the centaur, who might just be showing off, leapt away with her.

“Hmmm. Please thank him for me, Ronan. I don’t think that’s meant to be for long, but it’s possible no one has ever needed an erotic diversion more than her.”

Ronan and Rhiannon both looked down at her with interest. “Not even Firenze?” Rhiannon asked, watching Luna work on her forelegs. 

Luna looked up, surprised. “Does he really?”

Both nodded fervently.

Luna looked after the departing pair speculatively. “Hmm. I hope she can handle the length of him.”

Ronan snorted. “She’ll handle enough. Firenze is uncommonly brilliant. He’ll relish the chance to improvise.”

Luna smiles, finishing the bandaging and standing up. “That’s something they have in common.”

##  _ ❧  _

It turned out that 5 other mares and 2 more stallions had left the Forbidden Forest settlement. Luna introduced herself to all of them, feeling an immediate kinship with one gravid mare, though she also worried slightly that Magorian wouldn’t take her absence lightly, in light of her condition.

She also made notes of the supplies the new herd would need to establish itself, which they had decided to do here, in and around the pavilion. One was a smith, and said he’d see with Dunstan if he could make use of the town’s forge before detailing what else he might need. It would be good to bring some industry back to Cashlanshie.

And then, after whisking her away for some celebratory attention - not including anything, alas, that might injure her - Ronan walked her back to the castle and kissed her goodbye before she ducked inside. 


	8. Endings and Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Months have passed, and Luna is returning from wrapping up her Galapagos Expedition. Home and the people who live there have already changed a great deal by the time of her return.

###  July, 2011 Cadracally Castle , Rathlin Island

Luna stepped through the Floo, glowing with happiness to be home after a beautiful conclusion to her Galapagos expedition - which had yielded good friendships and the discovery of a total of 15 new subspecies and one entirely new species over its interrupted duration. She’d polish her notes and consider where to publish later - but for now, she was here, and happy to have been able to take a less turbulent series of stops home this time, especially in light of her condition.

Almost as soon as she had noted her yet-uncurved belly in March, it had begun to bulge. Now, nearly as far into pregnancy as she expected to go before going into labor, she looked every inch as if she were carrying triplets, and almost always supported her burgeoning bump from below with one hand. 

“Hello?” She called out, hearing answering cries of greeting from various directions as she put down her knapsack of gear.

Knowing others were coming, she waited there, having a seat on the settee in front of the fire.

“Luna!” Neville was the first to throw himself into her arms, however carefully, and melt into her kiss. “Oh, I’ve missed you. How were the last month month? I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let anyone but Hermione visit you.”

Luna smiled up at her husband, nipping at his lower lip affectionately to put an end to his pout. “Only because she was overseeing my care. Otherwise, I would never have gotten anything done! Hagrid and I were more than capable of finishing what we started, especially with the Iara’s help and knowledge of the area to help us.”

“Good, good,” he said, pausing to kiss her again, pulling her into his lap. “Are things cleared up between all parties there, too?”

She smiled down at him. “I think so. I believe all avenues may be re-explored later, when the little ones have arrived and I’ve recovered - which I was particularly concerned about when it came to Hagrid, but… eventually he calmed, some. I think he was just so delighted to think of baby half-creatures he couldn’t wait to meet, he had to get over his little moments - especially when I said I’d still be delighted to, em, collaborate on one of his very own. Kolinaisi, however...” She smiled wistfully and nipped at her husband’s nose. “I’ll tell you later, in bed, shall I?”

He laughed, coloring slightly. “I’d like that. I also wanted to let you know - well, I hadn’t intended it, but, well, I’d very much like to ask Rhiannon if she’d be interested in a romantic relationship. She’s a brilliant herbologist, and we’ve been roaming the island together finding samples since the end of term, especially, but I didn’t want to start anything unless I asked in person.”

Luna beamed at him. “But Neville, that’s perfect! Oh, she could use some healing love, and I’d  _ love _ for it to come from you - and for  _ you _ to have a story for me for a change.” Her eyes unfocused and a sort of lusty grin insinuated its way onto her lips. “In fact, you should go to her - go, tonight! I’ll be here if she isn’t interested, and tomorrow besides, but I’ll look in on others if you’ve been waiting. New love is even sweeter to seize than a reunion. And your  _ first!  _ Oh, Neville, I’m happy for you - and I’ll help you work through it if things get strange.”

He blushed and bit his lip, looking at her with excited eyes. “Really? I… oh, of course you mean it. It’s… giddying, to have this  _ and _ you, and... Well, thank you, Luna. Tomorrow evening, after dinner, I want every iota of your attention - and every story you have to tell.” He kissed her, then whispered in her ear. “I’ll bring the melted chocolate.”

Then he dashed for the door, Luna laughing as she watched him go.

And then… “Boggart!” Luna cried, seeing for the first time the face she had only before felt in the dark.

She either had chosen or defaulted to a height of around six feet, though there were others peering curiously from behind her ranging from 3-10’ tall. Luna was certain that at the lead was  _ her _ Boggart, though, because she was gently guiding the others around, showing them where things were. 

Luna was pulled up into a slightly-less-overwhelming-than-usual hug, as the Boggart - or now, the Phooka? - was wearing a closed leather vest with a pale blue kilt, sparing Luna from being immediately engulfed in her majestic cleavage. The short, soft fur that covered her was white, and indeed her head did resemble that of a fox, though her hands, despite looking entirely natural on her four graceful arms, were unlike anything Luna had seen before. Her feet looked quite like vulpine paws, but bigger, broader, to adequately carry her weight.

“How’s the sprog, then?” She grinned, lowering her great tufted ear to Luna’s belly and tickling her affectionately.

“All are well,” Luna grinned, indulging the other mother among the parents of her forthcoming brood. “Listen, we have to talk about names.”

The Boggart nodded. “We’ve been talking about that, actually - we’re all choosing our own and I’ve got a list I like for the babe. I’d love your thoughts on both if we can catch up later? Only, tour now and all.”

Luna grinned. “Hello everyone, sorry not to have met you when you arrived - I live here too, I’m Luna! So glad that we’ll be neighbors.”

They smiled sheepishly at her, pawing over their noses and speaking to each other in hushed tones.

Luna looked a little concerned, darting a glance back to the known Boggart. “Luna, give them time. You’re sort of administrator of this great experiment at the very least -- even if you won’t let yourself be landlord, mayor, or gentry, and… I suspect it’s very difficult for any of them to be around you, really, now that you lean a bit on your fae gifts and we’re no longer cut off from ours, not to just throw themselves at your feet.”

Luna blinked up at the Boggart. “You feel  _ that?  _ About  _ me? _ ” 

She nodded, looking absolutely untroubled by it. “And I’m grateful. If you weren’t here I think we’d all want to go looking for some other foot to lick. Yours are delicious, and they don’t kick.”

Luna tried to think about that but suspected she’d need some time. “Boggart... If I ever do, please stop me.”

The Boggart’s ears flattened against her skull. “Luna! I owe you my life! Requesting that of me can easily veer into binding. Just… look, be careful and think about how you want to word it and modify how, say, later, alright? Off to show folks around. Oh - but could you think of a normal fox for us, first?”

Luna did.

With a gentle nip at her neck, the Boggart swayed off, looking much more the queen of all she surveyed than Luna suspected she could  _ ever _ feel. Luna watched them go until they left through the gate, at which point they all smoothly transformed into little red foxes of the sort Luna had envisioned and frisked off through the grass rather than taking the road.


	9. Power and Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna contemplates her responsibilities as someone who's changing and becoming more powerful, and in which such thoughts are derailed by the accidental discovery of certain liaisons happening between mage family and centaur friends in the woods.
> 
> CW: one person involved in a liaison in the woods, at least, seems to be using their partner and excess roughness in a way that isn't entirely healthy.

Luna took the woodland path down toward Cashlanshie, wanting to give herself a little time to think apart from her increasingly plentiful neighbors. The way she was changing - increased occurence of anger, and use of the power that made her glow - was fascinating. The time she was spending with other fae might be accelerating that, or simply coming into her power by feeling secure in her place with respect to her career, her home, and the strange family she was building around herself and even growing inside her. There were too many variables to pinpoint - but… 

Luna was aware that her first response to things was generally detached curiosity, but she had also lived through very difficult times created largely by a very powerful person who was unchecked by himself or others. She… had more potential for power, which was known to corrupt, than she had ever imagined, and it _was_ making her… different. She would have to determine how best to ensure that any transformative influence this all had on her was something considered rather than something accidental in order to continue to be worthy of the trust so many good people had started placing in her. And, for a life-long loner unused to roles of authority or admiration - unused to even _friendship_ , for so many of her formative years… she just felt uneasy about it all.

She had almost stumbled straight through the place where the path passed close between two clearings, then, when she noticed the movement.

She blinked slightly and then cast a Disillusionment charm on herself, wary, only to find… something unanticipated. She was abashed to find herself unable to move or look away. All she could do was swivel her head from the scene on the right to the one on her left in disbelief -- and, or course, take out her field journal for notes and some sketches of this seldom-witnessed smorgasboard.

It seemed that the Centaurs had constructed themselves a… _play_ area. Two couples under what she guessed were separate silencing charms were currently using it, apparently unaware of each other.

To her right were Neville and Rhiannon. Rhiannon was standing in a small depression in the ground and he was standing on the lip of it before her, kissing her passionately while she fumbled, behind her, with several latches on a sort of harness around her equine half. The… well, really, it was a hole in the ground in which she stood, though it ramped up along one side, made it so that he was actually taller than she for the purposes of the kiss, which seemed to be something she in particular was reveling in. Luna wished she could hear the words her husband was saying to his new lover between little nips as he started to work his mouth down her neck, his hands kneading at the small of her back.

Meanwhile, to her left were Hermione and Firenze. Hermione, naked, lay on her back in a sort of short hammock that cradled her from her head down to the beginning of her buttocks. She was holding onto two posts out to her sides that seemed to have been installed for exactly that purpose, and her legs were up around Firenze’s flanks just in front of his equine hips while… _huh_. She must have worked out that adapted extension charm she and Luna had discussed the last time the brunette had gotten tipsy on a visit to the islands. 

Luna blinked and looked back to Neville and Rhiannon. The harness, it turned out, was some sort of a sling lift. It must be attached to some stout limb overhead, but as she watched, Neville stripped off his shirt and turned his considerable musculature to turning a great winch that lifted the centaur up off her feet, leaving her hooves dangling over the pit she’d stepped into. He got her up to a certain point and then walked over to massage her dock, his fingers wandering under her uplifted tail as she bit her lip and opened her mouth in what, to Luna, was a silent moan. Both lovers’ eyes were darkening when he went back to the winch, pulling her a little higher.

Luna looked back to the left. The velvety coat of Firenze’s stomach was rubbing over her sister’s torso with great crushing strokes, but Hermione, eyes closed and face turned to the side, looked to be only in a blissful amount of pain. The centaur indeed was managing to mount her to the hilt - Luna could see the bulge of his phallus inside the witch’s stomach beyond where any witch unprepared with a spell could have endured it. Suddenly, he reared up with what looked like a roar of pleasure and held himself on his back hooves for several fast, deep thrusts, which was when Luna saw that, in his hands, he held golden chains that led to dainty clamps that were attached to her sister’s nipples. He was pulling these chains with rhythmic flicks of his wrists to the point where the rosy pinched tips lifted her sister’s shoulders clear of the hammock in an arch. Luna saw both a scream on Hermione’s lips and the tremors shaking her hips, and so learned that, along with the other things they had in common, it seemed they both enjoyed a little sharp with their soft.

Blinking, she looked back to the right. Neville had also done some innovative spellwork - she wondered if he’d talked to Went or if it was common for wizards to know phallus-enlargement charms - but he was now comparable in size and someone thicker in girth than a male centaur. Luna spared a moment to be miffed he’d never indulged in this fascinating possibility in their own escapades as she watched him swing the hanging Rhiannon to and away from him, helped by little kicks she gave to the edges of the pit she dangled over, so that he could pull his temporarily enormous length out and push it back into her. He was smiling, his eyes closed in concentration, and she was clearly keening and talking, her fingers tugging at her fine full breasts. What Luna could read on her lips was… my, quite lewd indeed. Hmm. Luna would have to try that with him, too.

Luna blinked, dazed and increasingly aroused, and turned her head left once more. Things were finishing there - at least for this round, though she wondered if, even with the extension charm, the witch could withstand more. Both lovers were clearly screaming through a very violent sort of climax, and Luna could only guess that Hermione had instructed Firenze not to plough her field gently. His rear hooved dug into the soft earth and pushed at the petite witch with all his equine strength, and streams of white, viscous semen gushed from the point of their congress with his every forward thrust. Hermione’s hands were massaging at the bulge just beneath her ribs where his glans pushed up from within her as he yanked hard on her clamped nips. Luna would have to reassess her opinion of the centaur as a gentle soul detached from earthly things, and she almost wondered if the hurt Hermione was encouraging him to inflict on her might be excessive. 

A bit worried, she turned back to Neville and Rhiannon, who, by contrast, looked absolutely besotted and were having a spirited but loving encounter. Neville got that look on his face, pumping behind the filly, that he often did when he mouthed off in the bedroom, and Luna stifled a giggle when Rhiannon whipped him with her tail and laughed at his affronted expression after. They showed no sign of slowing, and Luna let herself be lulled into watching them rut, bewitched, for too long.

Her head whipped back to the left when the other silencing spell was released, and she heard Hermione and Firenze talking in hushed but impassioned tones. 

“Witch, you wander close to a brink, and while I find myself unable to deny you, I worry that you seem to enjoy what must be hurting you considerably.”

“Firenze, I value your company and your scholarly companionship, but I do not think it is within the purview of our arrangement for you to cast judgement on my proclivities.”

The centaur was quiet a moment, watching Hermione summon and take several potions before she gingerly started to rise. 

“Hermione… I understand the hurt of being denied closeness to those one loves, but … this can’t lift that from you, not really. And I don’t believe that, absent some dark preoccupation, this would be the lovemaking you’d choose. Have you… have you told him how you feel?”

Hermione was quiet, then. Luna frowned, worried at the emotions flashing over her sister’s face. 

“He asks me how he should approach an old relationship he’s thinking about rekindling. I don’t think he’ll ever see me as a romantic possibility at all.”

The normally serene Firenze’s brows shot up. “You must be mistaken. I have never seen another maid so comely and I have seen many, many maids in my two hundred years. Surely it could not hurt to be forthcoming with him…?”

Hermione sighed. “I just… I have Luna now, but you have no idea, after everything else I’ve lost, how much I stand to lose if I risk that and it only drives a wedge between us, Firenze. He’s… I couldn’t bear it if something… I just can’t. So… thank you for riding me roughly, and I appreciate your concern, but I just… _no_. Please, please do not deny me the pleasure of our time together.” She managed to get her feet unsteadily to the ground and slide out of the hammock as she said this. Her legs bowed and there were bruises forming on her stomach.

Firenze hemmed a bit, then handed her the chain leads still dangling from the witch’s breasts. “I … need to think. I wish you would talk to your sister about this. I understand she’ll be home sometime today.”

Hermione nodded. “Maybe. She has so much going on. I don’t want to worry her.”

With a sigh, the centaur turned and lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his more human waist and pulling her into a long, deep kiss. Luna sadly realized this didn’t seem to be the sort of diversionary arrangement for him that it was for Hermione. 

That tender insight made her look away and briefly glanced back to see that Neville was still blissfully attending to Rhiannon, who had arched her human torso back to gaze at him upside-down, clearly doting. The vision of their congress restored a bit of her equanimity, but she still made herself a little promise to try to figure out how to help Harry and Hermione. And, perhaps, Firenze. 

Then, realizing that two of that troubled party were starting to head toward her and she did not yet know what she needed to say to them, she tucked away her rather fantastic notes and sketches and rushed forward, back on her way to the village with even more on her mind.


	10. A Welcomed Welcome

“Luna!”

She looked around and finally up before she found the source of the voice calling her. “Hello, Dunstan!”

The chameleon ghoul grinned down at her from something like thirty feet above her, where he was tinkering with the old clock tower. She returned the grin - it was good to see him again, and he’d worked wonders for the town. 

She was a little shocked, though, when he jumped down and landed nearly at her feet in a crouch, and then stood to embrace her. “I’ve missed you  _ terribly.  _ Please tell me I can impose upon you inside for… an hour, perhaps?”

She smiled. Well, that was one way to clear her head. 

It was after the first two enthusiastic rounds of their reunion that they really had the breath to talk. It seemed Dunstan had moved into the tower, his bed up among the gears and the stunning views in all directions. Now that they’d finally made it up the stairs, he was spooning behind her as they lay on their sides, gently pumping in and out of her as they talked.

“I’m glad the expedition was concluded to your satisfaction, but I’m also glad that you’re back,” he said, kissing along her shoulder with his cold, stone lips. “My dreams were getting quite dire without you, and there’s too much to do now to sink into the sort of sleep that helped me all the years there was no one else here.”

Luna smiled over her shoulder at him. “Mmmm. Well, I missed you too. And this.” She stretched back into him, luxuriating in their slow, rich congress. “Things certainly seem to have become complicated here in my absence. And populous. This is the sweetest, simplest welcome home I’ve had, yet, and I needed it.”

He smiled, his ember eyes bright. “You’re absolutely exquisite like this. I’m just glad I’ve learned to temper my enthusiasm sufficiently to safely enjoy it. I can only imagine, though, how heady this would be if  _ my  _ child were in your belly.”

Luna grasped his hand, knowing that though his marble flesh didn’t give under her touch, he could feel the little squeeze. “Perhaps next time. That you find me so appealing in this state is comforting. I hope to have many more children, and it seems pregnancy makes me quite lustful.”

His eyes rolled up and he moved a little faster. “I wish I knew why your detached, almost scientific way of wondering why you’re slicker than warm butter heats me like it does. Talk dispassionately to me about your sexual observations only if I can safely be a bit rougher with you, witch.”

She smiled a bit over her shoulder. “Though there is no data to support the tales, they say that intercourse can quicken the coming of labor. I wonder if you could assist me with a study.”

He growled a little and sped up. “Go on.”


	11. Apprised and Carried

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luna gets a lift home and more information than she remembered to ask for from Dunstan when she runs across Ronan on the road home.

Luna massaged at the small of her back when, two hours later, she started back toward the castle. She felt remarkably satiated but also a bit sore, as always seemed to be the case these days. It was normal and healthy, she knew, so she tried to ignore it.

She was grateful, nontheless, when Ronan trotted up to her and lifted her up, as Neville had when she was his new bride before their threshold.

“Hello, lovely.” He greeted her with an affectionate kiss. “Please may I help you up the hill?”

They had a lovely chat as she lay in his arms. It seemed that Bill and Fleur were renovating one of the houses in the village and that a few goblins had been by to assess the state of the derelict bank. Other werewolves had visited, too, and several seemed guardedly interested in moving here, once Bill was established and could reassure them that he was happy here. Luna was sad but unsurprised that they felt the need to be so cautious.

“I saw that your people have created a place to better enjoy human company.” Luna said as they crossed the drawbridge.

Ronan’s ears reddened a bit. “Em, well, had to invent something to keep myself busy while you were away? It’s gotten a remarkable amount of use.”

Luna smiled. “Glad to hear. There are other couples, then, than Hermione and Firenze and, now, Neville and Rhiannon?”

Ronan perked up a bit. “Did he finally ask her? She’s been in a foul temper hoping… huh, I’m glad to hear. But, yes. There have been. One of the werewolves thinking of moving here has been seeing one of the centaurs who joined us from the alps. I suspect that one will be instrumental in persuading others, now he’s got ample self interest involved, if nothing else. Elquin, another of the stallions from the Forest, has also been making overtures to Mr. Potter, but I don’t think they’ll go anywhere, alas.” 

Luna chuckled. “Must be worse at Seeing through the stars than I am, even, to try.”

Ronan sighed a little. “Firenze sees but keeps trying.”

Luna nodded. “I saw them today. I didn’t intend to.”

“Mmm,” he said, and they were both quiet and thoughtful as he stepped onto the cobbles. 

“A conundrum for another day,” Luna said, yawning, as he lowered her to her feet. 

He smiles, smoothing a hand back over her hair. “Sleep well, little minx.”

“You too.”


	12. Runaway Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A last member of her family, finally, is checked in with at bedtime.

There was one final, important thing left for her evening, she thought, after she’d greeted the three young elves and eaten supper in their company. 

She  _ refused _ to call him, so instead she looked around. 

He wasn’t in his rooms, or in the elf quarters. He wasn’t in the hall or the kitchen or on the balcony or in the breakfast room. Nor the library, nor the sunken lounge, nor among the Boggarts in the Dungeon, who seemed more comfortable greeting her when she wandered down into their dark sanctum to check. 

More rooms had doubtless been opened, but she didn’t know which, and she was saddened and considering breaking her resolve not to summon him when she slowly started to climb the tower stairs to her bed. She passed through her sitting room and study first, and then, up the stairs, and…

_ There _ he was. 

Sitting by her crackling hearth with a book in his hands was Kreacher, the points of his ears protruding from his silken black hair, which at some point he seemed to have figured out he could cut shorter. His stocking feet stretched toward the warmth of the fire, and he was quietly reading aloud to himself. 

“If you become a… mou… a mountain clim...ber? Mountain climber… yes, if you become a mountain climber…”

“‘I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.’” Luna said, smiling as he looked up in surprise.

He made a low little sound of need and put the book down, striding over to sweep her up in his arms.

“Kreacher missed you,” he breathed into her hair. “And would become your gardener.”

Luna smiled even as she kissed him. “You already are. Come to bed with me.”

“Alright.”

As they lay down together, both curled around her belly, they smiled at each other sleepily until, eventually, both yielded and let their eyes droop closed in sleep.


	13. Love’s Labor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: childbirth

She woke aware of wetness and pain, but it was the sound of Kreacher’s gasp that wrenched her eyes open.

An unfamiliar woman - middle aged, round, impressively laugh-lined - was bustling about, hanging a huge kettle over the fire without burning her hands despite the clear elven points to her ears as she waddled about with a purpose. She glanced up as the stranger - who seemed exaggeratedly non-threatening somehow - conjured a heap of towels, warmth wafting off of them, and plunked them down at the foot of the bed.

“Ah, you’re up then! Grand. Call me Mabeline. Your gran thought you should have a proper midwife and wet nurse, so here I be.”

Kreacher and Luna glanced at each other silently, then back to her, then back to each other before Luna winced as what could only be a contraction rolled through her and Kreacher, eyes widening in understanding, held her tight.

“Kreacher…  _ Hermione _ … please… and … the others.” Luna shifted, casting a drying spell beneath her as she found her wand.

Kreacher’s eyes darted back to the stranger, who was humming to herself as she plopped more logs onto the fire.

“I’ll be alright,” Luna assured him, smiling.

And with a soft crack, there was only air beneath the falling shape under the blankets he’d just occupied.

And Luna turned her eyes to the interloper.

“You may stay,” she said, “If you promise no medicine or spell or trickery or other work of power will be done by you or your agent in this castle or on its lands without the explicit and fully understanding consent of all concerned. I…” she winced, pausing through another contraction, fists tightening on her wand, “I will forgive you the sleep you seem to have cast over the start of my labor, but no more deciding anything for anyone. Absolutely no whisking away offspring and leaving changelings in their places. And you must acknowledge that loyalty to  _ me  _ and me alone, over and above any interfering vows, geases, or other agreements, explicit or otherwise, are paramount here at the seat of my family and my power - not only for you but anyone else who sets foot in this place while they are here, and for any who are born here unless I release them.”

The older woman listened closely, a slow smirk tipping up the corner of her mouth as she stilled, fists planted on her hips as she watched the tiny blonde grappling with her heavy burden on the bed. She didn’t say a thing.

Luna narrowed her eyes. “Swear it on your blood and power now or be gone from here.”

After a pause a grudging nod, then a little nick to the neck with a fingernail to let a drop of blood fall onto - and somehow  _ into  _ \- the stones of the floor. “I so swear on my blood and my power, on pain of banishment and punishment and tenfold amends. So, you’re clever, too, is it? That’s lovely, that is.”

The older woman summoned a large, old medical bag full of silver instruments and started sorting selected implements and basins onto a side table covered with one of the warm towels.

Luna, meanwhile, watched, and eventually nodded. “Nice to meet you, then. Is your current form comfortable to you?”

Mabeline blinked, “What’s that you say? ‘Course it is! Whyever would you ask?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Because there’s only one individual who could have gotten through the wards, and that wasn’t oversight on my part.”

Their eyes met just as Hermione charged through the door, weighed down with supplies she’d packed and repacked at least twice daily for the last month in preparation for this. “Luna! I… oh!”

Her sister glanced between her and the other woman. Luna sighed. “Hermione, I’ve just met my grandmother. Grandmother, this is my adopted sister, Hermione, who you may assist today if she’ll allow it, and whose word is second only to my own on Lovegood lands.”

The two healers assessed each other a long moment until both looked back to Luna at her next soft cry. It was Mabeline’s eyes who darted back to Hermione first. “Well, then,  _ adoptive granddaughter _ , may I please put a healing on you? You’re rather beaten up for someone who needs attend what might be a tricky labor.”

Hermione drew herself up, glancing at Luna, who nodded. Then relaxed marginally. “You… may.”

The brunette glowed a moment and then blinked as if suddenly more awake, stretching slightly.

Mab shook her head and started bustling about again with her tools. “You said I could, and your damned idiocy about that Wizard was the most dangerous thing on you, so don’t look so surprised I gave you a little help. We’ll talk about the spell later, but first, would you mind using silver? Two of these children will be more fae than human.”

Hermione blinked and the two of them got to work.

❧ 

As she bit down on the stick Went had fetched her from the old beech and  _ pushed _ , Luna was glad she’d chosen the large bedroom. 

At some point, Ronan had vanished the headboard with his new wand and laid his equine part down behind it, his hands coming down to rub at her shoulders from above her head as he cooed relaxing sounds to her. 

Kreacher had her right hand, and was utterly failing to conceal the absolute state this all was working him into. Neville was between Ronan and Kreacher, stroking her arm affectionately and looking proud as he took the notes and drew the sketches she directed him to between contractions. Rhiannon was standing behind him, a hand on her shoulder as she encouraged Luna on. 

At her left hand was the Boggart, who’d swelled to fifteen feet tall and couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position, but was holding Luna’s hand and arm with all four of her own and casting occasional wary glances at Mab as she bustled about under Hermione’s direction. 

Harry was near the hearth, pale and uncomplaining as Hermione snapped instructions at him, completing some things while he delegated others to the three anxious house elves who dithered about in the doorway. 

Dunstan was sending messages through the hearth and directing traffic there as loved ones - Rolk, Hagrid, Aurora, even  _ Xenophilius _ , apparently - came to wait. 

_ “Why _ are you doing that?” Hermione snapped, hair crackling, as she watched some motion as Mab massaged Luna’s abdomen. 

Mab’s hands flew away as if she’d been struck. “Em, trying to position one of the children for birth, as one does…”

Hermione shouldered her aside, glowering. “Towels. You well know one already is.”

Mab shrugged and bustled about to fetch and carry.

Hermione shook her head, then looked up at Luna. “One head’s crowning, love. If we’re lucky, two pushes more until you meet them. Brace yourself?”

Luna blinked down, not bothering to take the gnawed stick from her mouth anymore, and waited until… she bore down. 

“Yes! Oh, Luna, all in one, you’re incredible, meet... meet your daughter!”

The Boggart gasped as, rather than a true Boggart, a little girl with two very human sets of arms and one tail, which appeared more vulpine than prehensile, was placed on the left side of Luna’s chest. Her little fox-like ears were tufted with white fur dappled with grey, and white curls were pressed wetly to her scalp. She didn’t cry, but looked around between her two gaping, weeping mothers, one eye amber and the other pale blue, before the Boggart, with a glance for permission to Luna, gently helped her latch on to the latter’s breast and start to suck. 

Luna was startled from her reverie by Hermione’s voice. 

“Alright,” Hermione said through an aura of sweat and authority, “another little one’s lined up now, and… push!”

Luna bit through the stick and swore as she spat it out, Ronan hastily clearing it away.

“You did it, you did it Luna, there’s the head, now… yes! Yes! Oh, Luna, she’s beautiful. And… Kreacher, meet your daughter,” Luna blinked back tears as the scowling infant was placed on the right side of her chest, pale pointed ears jutting up from under remarkable hair - pale gold down one side of the part and black down the other. Luminous blue-green eyes flashed open as she fumbled toward her mother’s nipple and latched independently with a little huff, her cord still between them as her father reached out to stroke down her back in wonder.

Her parents eyes met, swimming in tears, even as the child seized Kreacher’s thumb in one little hand and Luna dissolved under the next painful contraction.

“That’s it,” Hermione said from below, “that’s it, you’re alright now, wait… another of the… em.. Alright, this one’s hooves first, I fear…” Luna felt Ronan’s hands still and tremble on her shoulders.

Luna heart the older woman swear and confer with Hermione in frantic, hushed voices. “Em, Luna, your… grandmother…” Every fae in the room and some of the others looked up in shock while the unassuming motherly woman shrugged and gave a jaunty little wave, “says she can cast some sort of a shielding charm to make this safer without a cesarean section. It sounds… theoretically sound, but I don’t know how to do it. Would you like to try?”

Luna looked down at the woman for a moment, then nodded. 

It all happened very quickly and hurt more, and was accompanied by more yelling and anxiety below. Luna wrapped her arms around the babes already in them for strength and, when she was told she could,  _ pushed _ . 

The Boggart swept their daughter up to her own breast to make way for this newest, loudest infant, strawberry-blonde and tan-skinned by comparison to the other two, who kicked her two little palomino feet, socked and dappled in white, as she started to nurse. 

Ronan’s human torso fell down across Luna’s shoulder as he embraced the little girl, bawling. 

Luna barely minded the final push as laughter and tears surrounded her as cords were cut and tied, elves finally bustled through to help tidy and greet their newest family, and Hermione collapsed weeping into Harry’s arms. Her grandmother smiled and waddled over to the rocker by the window, shooting her a little wink as she pulled out some knitting, but that would keep for another day. Now, though, her family truly began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so this interlude comes to an end. Names will surface in later stories. Hope those following this as a series have enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> J. K. Rowling owns Potter characters and world, and I am simply building sandcastles in it as a guest, who makes no money from my trevails.


End file.
